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United States Postal Inspection Service
Mailing of Child Pornography

 

It is illegal to send child pornography through the U.S. Mails. Child pornography includes the visual depiction of sexual activities or overtly sexual poses involving children, legally defined as persons under age 18.

Pornographic pictures of children that are mailed need not be "obscene" to violate the law. As information, federal law (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1461), makes it a crime to mail "obscene" matter, and the mailing of such matter has been investigated by the Postal Inspection Service for over a century. "Obscenity" was constitutionally defined by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1973 of Miller versus California decision. To be obscene, material, "taken as a whole," must:

  • Appeal to a prurient [typified by obsessiveness] interest in sex;

  • Contain "patently offensive depictions or descriptions of specific sexual conduct," as judged by a local grand jury in light of the contemporary standards in the affected community; and

  • On the whole, have "no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
The problem of child pornography led the U.S. Congress to enact the Sexual Exploitation of Children Act in 1977 (Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2251-2254). The name of the law alludes to the fact that there is no First Amendment (free speech) consideration when evaluating the mailing of child pornography: Pornographic pictures of children are not constitutionally protected speech. Rather, such pictures are evidence of the sexual exploitation of children, a form of emotional child abuse. If sexual intercourse is depicted, the photographs are evidence of physical child abuse. In addition, under the Child Protection Act of 1984 (which amended the 1977 law), child pornography need not be "obscene" to be non-mailable, nor must it be mailed for a commercial purpose or to make a monetary profit.

The Postal Inspection Service is interested in combating the production and distribution of child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children. Therefore, the mailing of child pornography receives priority attention as a part of the effort to eliminate this form of child abuse. If acts of physical child abuse are discovered incident to a Postal Inspection Service investigation, immediate referral is made to local law enforcement authorities for additional attention to protect the children.

If you have information the U.S. Mails were used to send child pornography, please contact the Postal Inspection Service immediately. Postal Inspectors may be listed in the white pages of your local telephone directory. Your local postmaster can also provide information as to the nearest Postal Inspector's office.

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